CANCER IN PAKISTAN
Pages with reference to book, From 178 To 183 N.A. Jafarey ( Department of Pathology, Basic Medical Sciences Institute, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi. )
S.H.M, Zaidi ( Department of Radiotherapy, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi. )
The available data on Cancer in Pakistan is based on the records of cases registered in some of the Departments of Radiotherapy and Pathology in the country. The information is thus confined to relative frequency of different tumours. Mortality rates, incidence rates and prevalence rates are not available, except for a snnll population base study done for the prevalence of carcinoma of the oral cavity in some areas of Karachi1. This is not an unusual situation as population based data are not available in most of the countries of the region.
Despite the fact that relative frequency data are not as good as incidence rates, useful information can be extracted from them. In this article the different ways in which the relative frequency data has been used in Pakistan will be described. In the order of presentation these will be:
1. Relative frequency data collected from five centres in the country as a part of a multi-centre study. 2. Comparing of the data collected in the above five centres in 1973-74 with that in 1979-83.
3. Examining the changes in the disease pattern in Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi over the last 25 years.
PMRC MULTI-CENTRE DATA 1981
Table 1 shows the frequency of different tumours in males and females for the year 1981 which is the year in which census was done. The five centres from which the data is being presented are:
2. Uaquat Medical College, Jamshoro (LMC). The data from this centre is of cases registered with the Department of Radiotherapy.
3. King Edward Medical College, Lahore (KEMC). The data from this centre is of cases registered with the Department of Radiotherapy.
4. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Rawalpindi (AFIP). The data from this centre is of all histologically proven cases submitted to it from defence service establishments throughout Pakistan plus many of the civilian institutions in Rawalpindi/Islamabad area.
Table II shows the ten commonest tumours among the males and females in each of the five centres and when all the centres are combined. The differences between different centres and the national or
comparison of the relative frequencies of different tumours in different centres. The ASCAR score for some of the tumour sites in different centres is given in Table IV.
COMPARISON OF 1973-74 & 1981 DATA
study was restarted in 1977 it included only the five centres reporting large number of cases. The data collected from 1977 to 1980 has been published as a monograph7. Comparing the figures of the two studies some interesting differences have been noted. The most important difference seen was in males where tumours of the Bronchus moved up from the 4th position in 1973-74 to the 1st position in 1977-80 (Table VI).
position in the 1977-80 figures. The cause for the increase in both the tumours of the Bronchus and Hypopharynx are probably the same that is increasing use of cigarettes. While tumours of Bronchus and Hypopharynx have increased those of the Oral cavity have steadily declined. The probable cause of it is the decline in the habit of chewing tobacco. Unlike the males there is no significant difference in the frequency figures of 1973-74 and 1977-80 among the females.
C HANGING TRENDS AT JPMC
At JPMC data on the cases seen since 1959 are available and have been analyzed to note the c hange trends. The relative frequency of various tumours seen over the years were plotted and then the
This type of analysis gives some idea of how the relative frequency of any given tumour site varies from year to year. This change does not necessarily reflect changes in the incidence rate of a tumour , but merely how it compares with other cases seen in the same year. Thus, if the incidence of cases from site A increases then the relative frequency of all other tumours will decrease as they are only a
proportion of the whole and not rates. Keeping these limitations in mind this type of analysis gives some useful information.
Over the last 25 years there has been consistent fall in the relative frequency of the carcinoma of the Oral Cavity in both the sexes (Figure 1). There has been a lesser degree of reduction in the relative frequency of tumours of the Pharynx and Larynx. On the other hand there has been a steep increase in the relative frequency of tumours of the Bronchus particularly in males (Figure 3) and Esophagus in both sexes (Figure 2).
REFERENCES
1. Jafarey, N.A. and Zaidi, S.H. Carcinoma of the oral cavity and oropharynx in Karachi (Pakistan); An appraisal. Trop. Doct., 1976;6: 63.
3. Jafarey, N.A. and Zaidi, S.H.M. Frequency of malignant tumours in Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi. JPMA., 1976; 26:57.
4. Parkin, D.M. Editor. Cancer Occurance in Developing Countries. International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, 1986.
5. Tuyns, A. J. Studies on cancer relative frequencies (ratio studies); a method for computing an age-standardized cancer ratio. Int. J. Cancer, 1968;3: 397.
6. Pakistan Medical Research Council :Collection of data of various types of tumours in Pakistan. Karachi, PMRC, 1977.
